WOW!!!

Ranger Ron · Post by **Ranger Ron** » August 21st, 2006, 7:53 am

Hey boys (and girls) better hang on for this one!!!! Unbelievable!!

This is absolutely the most moving story I've ever heard of in my life.
As you watch the video at the end....it will surely move you as well.
Can you imagine the bond that this father/son team have? Unbelievable!
-

I have received and forwarded allot of emails in recent years. This is
probably the neatest I've ever received or forwarded. I promise you that
if
you read this and then watch the video (link at the end) you WILL have
tears
in your eyes. BE PREPARED! What a father this man is. I thought I was a
great father...by comparison I am adequate... made me think.........

Strongest Dad in the World
[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay
for
their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.
But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in
marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a
wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and
pedaled him
112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.
Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back
mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes
taking
your son bowling look a little lame, right?
And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was
strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged
and unable to control his limbs.
``He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told
him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an
institution.''
But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes
followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the
engineering
department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help
the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. ``There's
nothing
going on in his brain.''
"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a
lot was going on in his brain.
Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by
touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to
communicate.
First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was
paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him,
Rick
pecked out, ``Dad, I want to do that.''
Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran
more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he
tried.
``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore for two
weeks.''
That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running,
it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''
And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving
Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly
shape
that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.
``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a
single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few
years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then
they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran
another
marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following
year.
Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''
How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he
was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick
tried. Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour
Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud
getting passed by
an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?
Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says.
Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with
a
cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston
Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best
time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world
record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to
be held
by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.
``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the
Century.''

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a
mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries
was
95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told
him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.''
So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.
Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston,
and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always
find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and
compete
in some backbreaking race every > weekend, including this Father's Day.
That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants
to give him is a gift he can never buy.
``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the
chair and I push him once.''

Here's the video..

Bravo57 · Post by **Bravo57** » August 21st, 2006, 8:19 am

Damn........ I wish I could say I'm even remotely that good of a Dad.

Puts everything in perspective.

Invictus · Post by **Invictus** » August 21st, 2006, 8:46 am

I'm not worthy. This guy's my hero.

42L5V · Post by **42L5V** » August 21st, 2006, 9:09 am

Steadfast · Post by **Steadfast** » August 21st, 2006, 9:14 am

42L5V wrote:wow.

X's 2

hobbit · Post by **hobbit** » August 21st, 2006, 9:23 am

On Fathers Day, ABC invited viewers to send in e-mails expounding the qualities they most admired in their dads. The network received more than 170,000 responses, the largest outpouring of gratitude and emotion they'd ever seen on any subject.

It was obvious that people with good dads love them more than anything else in their lives.

MrsDocMac · Post by **MrsDocMac** » August 21st, 2006, 9:27 am

I am in awe seeing the love and dedication in this face for his son, and watching his son smile as they compete. I can't help but cry and feel something move deep inside me at such devotion, love, and joy.

He is a great man, and an amazing father. He's been tested over and over again and has prevailed through every trial and tribulation. God Bless him and his son.

Thank you for that Ranger Ron.

Scoty · Post by **Scoty** » August 21st, 2006, 9:41 am

Steadfast wrote:
42L5V wrote:wow.
X's 2

Make it x3...wow.

Fishboy · Post by **Fishboy** » August 21st, 2006, 9:43 am

Scoty wrote:
Steadfast wrote:
42L5V wrote:wow.
X's 2
Make it x3...wow.

X4

great stuff!

SA Yons · Post by **SA Yons** » August 21st, 2006, 10:09 am

RangerRon wrote: Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran
more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he
tried.
``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore for two
weeks.''

I dont care who you are, that's motivating.

I just don't buy that a military retiree and "porker" never ran more than a mile at a time. What I do see from Mr. Hoyt is a great amount of humility.

Ranger Ron, thanks for posting.

I've been tracking these two for some time now, their lives serve as an inspiration to all.
I'll make sure to tell this story to every fatass pukie-pogue who needs some motivation trying to grind out his APFT two-miler in a whopping 20 minutes.

Currently disgruntled with the average lazy-ass Regular Army soldier,
-SA

hobbit · Post by **hobbit** » August 21st, 2006, 10:38 am

Wade wrote:This guy is amazing.

I need to get going on that tree fort I'm supposed to be building.

Speaking of tree houses and a father's love for his son:

This is a property I owned in Eureka, CA until I sold it in 1997. The treehouses were already there when I bought the place in 1993. The guy who built them was a commercial fisherman who's only son was lost at sea at age 12 when he decided to go out on the boat with his dad for the day. They never found his body.

This fisherman spent the next 2 years building the two upper treehouses as a shrine to his little boy. They sit almost 45 ft. above the ground, have stoves and bunks, and obsevation ports where you can look out to sea two miles away. They appear in a German-language book called "Great Tree Houses of the World". Neighbors told me that if the builder had lost his son, at least he never lacked for the sound of laughing and carousing little boys playing up in the treehouses. They attracted every kid in the neighborhood for years.

By the time I bought the place, the trees had grown a foot or two, and the steps leading up were getting dangerous, so I had to cut off public access.

Invictus · Post by **Invictus** » August 21st, 2006, 10:56 am

This fisherman spent the next 2 years building the two upper treehouses as a shrine to his little boy. They sit almost 45 ft. above the ground, have stoves and bunks, and obsevation ports where you can look out to sea two miles away. They appear in a German-language book called "Great Tree Houses of the World". Neighbors told me that if the builder had lost his son, at least he never lacked for the sound of laughing and carousing little boys playing up in the treehouses. They attracted every kid in the neighborhood for years.

DAYUM! My boys would shit themselves to have access to that. What a great tribute. Thanks for the picture brother.